


True Friends

by Snow_Leopard_777



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Bashing, Adrien salt, Adult Language, Alix flips a table, Alya Césaire Bashing, Alya Salt, Bustier salt, Damien is happy he is just Damien, Flashbacks, Kim and Ivan restrain Alix, Lila Rossi Redemption, Lila actually knows the Wayne's, Lila is a good person, Lila owes Damien a favor, Lila sits back and laughs at obliviousness, Mari Chloè Juleka Lila and Damien are all vegan, Mari Juleka and Chloè are almost killed, Mari doesn't know Wayne, Mari is a moon child, Mari is a year younger than everyone, Nino stands up to Alya, Panic Attacks, Vegans Unite!, Vegetarians & Vegans, Warnings for really bad anxiety attacks, and minor oc character death, but skipped a grade, she hates anxiety, so she's in their class
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow_Leopard_777/pseuds/Snow_Leopard_777
Summary: Marinette is fifteen, and became vegan when she was five. Alya spots the class's three proclaimed vegans, Marinette, Chloè, and Juleka, with Alix, eating a burger at Burger King. Alya instantly becomes determined to prove that the vegans are lying, and sneakily mixes one of their synthetic meat meals with real meat. When Lila realizes what happened to the other vegans, she makes a call to an old adversary in America. He's rich, smart, and he and his brothers solve cold cases for fun. Surely he can help take Alya down before someone dies.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Comments: 155
Kudos: 991





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank Tumblr for this. No joke. This is the fifth Daminette fic I have started, and the first for me to publish. All because of Tumblr. I was looking for Ozmav's Maribat au, and started going through _everything_. I found where Mari and Chloè were vegans and Alya nearly killed them trying to prove that Chloè was lying about a meat allergy. Lila's mother was vegan, and Lila herself became vegan after someone messed up and let her mom's food get meat residue on it. Her mom was hospitalized for a week, and Lila converted because she was scared of it happening again. I don't know much about DC at all, most of what I know is from reading fanmade posts on here and Tumblr.
> 
> This is gonna be a disaster.

The fact that Marinette Dupain-Cheng had anxiety wasn't just the worst kept secret at François-DuPont. No, it was the worst kept secret in the  _ world. _ And everyone except two people in Madame Bustier's class knew it, especially since Jagged Stone oftentimes spoke of his "favorite rockin' niece" struggling with it. Even Lila took pity on the girl. She watched the class that held her as Queen. She knew all their tells, what they wanted most, except Marinette, of course, and their problems. So when she saw Marinette's anxiety consuming her when certain people in the class pushed too hard, the sixteen-year-old called attention back to herself with something  _ loud _ . Whether it was a new injury, a boyfriend, recently discovered disability, or famous celebrity in a specific genre varied depending on the people she wanted to catch the attention of, distracting them long enough that Chloè, Alix, or Juleka could get to the girl unseen and bring her down. Everyone seemed to know about Marinette's anxiety- except for Adrien Agreste, Alya Césaire, and Caline Bustier. Lila had a small suspicion that the teacher knew but simply chose to ignore it. Adrien was too stupid to figure anything out, even when it was dead in his face. And the supposed reporter really,  _ really _ sucked at her job. Lila actually did know a few reporters, not all of her stories were lies, after all, but she would never subject one of them to Césaire's brand of stupidity. Maybe that's why she sent the text to her mom when it came out that Chloè and Marinette neither one ate meat and were fed something heavily contaminated with it, almost killing both girls (and Juleka, but Lila had little to no interaction with her). Damien Wayne didn't particularly like her, but he was good a finding things out. Lila vividly remembered when someone had nearly killed her mother the exact same way, leading to Lila's own aversion of meat. Damien himself was vegan, or maybe simply vegetarian, how was she supposed to remember? But someone poisoning her only worthy adversy and then Alya and Adrien purposely driving the girl to an anxiety attack before Lila got to school led to Lila making one of the hardest decisions in her life. 

  
  


**_Three Days Earlier:_ **

Lila felt… off. There was a sense of impending doom that she couldn't seem to pinpoint. Alya had said something about proving a lie before storming off, leaving Lila with Nino, Ivan, and Mylène for lunch. Adrien was out of the country with his father and wouldn't be back for another two days, and Marinette took her three friends away for lunch. Lila was unsure as to whether Sabrina went with them or not. When lunch was over, the students were slow to file back in the class, though there were four absences that were glaringly obvious to Lila, well, two more than the others, and Alya snickered in her seat. The four girls never came back to class, and the teacher said nothing. 

Lila actually stayed after class to ask Bustier if she knew what happened to the girls. She simply looked surprised and looked around as though she didn't even notice they weren't there. Lila felt her heart sink, and nearly ran to Madame Mendelieve's classroom. "Madame, please! Marinette, Chloè, Juleka, and Alix left together for lunch and I haven't seen them since. Madame Bustier didn't even realize they weren't here! Have you heard anything?"

Mendelieve was no idiot. She knew the exact dynamic the class had picked up, though was always shocked at how well Lila was at diverting attention off of Marinette when her anxiety set in. Though, considering Mademoiselle Rossi's file, it should have been expected. "Mademoiselle Kubdel called to inform me shortly before the end of lunch that Mademoiselles Dupain-Cheng, Couffaine, and Bourgeois are in the hospital due to severe allergic reactions. Apparently their meal was purposely contaminated with meat, though the police have been unsuccessful in finding the culprit. All they know is that the perpetrator is a female, they kept their face pointed away from the cameras and hair covered when they went to deliver the meal."

Lila was horrified, though she had a sneaking suspicion as to who it was. "Madame… would you mind keeping me informed? My mother… when she was… she had… it was…"

"I understand, Mademoiselle Rossi. I read your file."

"Thank you, Madame."

"Hmph. I'm only doing it because this is the first time you have willingly set foot in my classroom since your first day. Besides, this could count as biology."

Lila had never ran from a room faster in her life, speeding to the closest hospital to the hotel Chloè lived in. The receptionist gave her an odd look when she ran in. "M-my classmates. They were admitted earlier today for an allergic reaction to meat."

"Oh, you must be one of their friends! Sign the visitor's log while I find the room number!"

"We're not exactly friends." Lila admitted. "But something similar happened to my mother when I was young. I want to make sure they're okay."

The receptionist gave her an apologetic smile. "Room 307. Can you get there on your own, or do you need a map?"

"I can get there. Thank you. Very much."

She took off to the the elevator, three hundreds were on the third floor. She quickly scanned for the hallway that led to room seven, nearly sprinting to the room. She finally slowed down when she reached their door. She gently pushed it open, not wanting to wake the girls if they were sleeping. She remembered how her mother had been bedridden for a little over a week.

"Alix." Lila's voice was soft, hesitant, the girl unable to project the image she wanted for the first time in a long time. "How are they?"

The small spitfire leapt to her feet. "What are you doing here?" The smaller girl growled. 

"My mother… She's been vegan since she was a little girl. When I was six, someone brought her a dish with real meat instead of a substitute. She almost died and was stuck in the bed a little over a week. I became vegan myself after that. I-I heard Alya say something about disproving an allergy a little while before lunch, and you guys never returned. Madame Bustier didn't even notice you weren't there, so I went to ask Madame Mendelieve."

Alix studied the girl, but for the first time, she seemed completely sincere and honest. "You can stay. If Alya comes here, she's dead. If she did this, she nearly killed my friends and got her mom fired and blacklisted for nothing." Lila made her way over, looking at the three figures on the two pulled together beds.

She slowly sat in a chair next to Alix. "There are two things I will never forgive. One is something like this. The other is trying to make someone have an anxiety attack."

"Haven't you been-"

Lila quickly shook her head. "I could tell that Marinette had anxiety not long after we met. It wasn't hard to learn her signs and divert attention off of her so one of you could bring her down. I have reasons for things, even if people don't always see them or find them viable. I know a guy in America, his family is pretty prolific. We don't really get along, but he's smart, like Marinette. He finds secrets. His family solves cold cases for fun, and one of his brothers is a police officer. If the police can't find who did this, I will do my best to convince him to come help."

"Why? I thought you hated us?"

Lila shrugged. "Us vegans have to stick together. That includes the guy I know."

Alix leaned back. "You know… if you lie because you want attention… you wouldn't have to lie to be Mari's friend and get all the attention you could want. She's very affectionate with people that are receptive to it."

"Yeah right, I've seen her with you guys."

"You've seen her with three of the least affectionate people in the class. We don't like to give or receive much affection. She knows that and respects our space. When she was friends with the blogger, it wasn't uncommon to see Mari sketching while sprawled across her lap."

Lila sat back, considering. "Perhaps… if she would really accept me, we could try to be friends." 

"Be warned, the first thing she's gonna do is insult your fashion sense and redesign your favorite outfit." Lila let out a laugh. She wouldn't mind having an MDC original.

**_Two Days Earlier:_ **

Marinette was going to be stuck in the hospital for two more days, Chloè one more, and Juleka was leaning on Alix in class. Lila fully understood, Marinette had gone vegan before the other two, followed by Chloè, then Juleka. They all knew Marinette was lucky her reaction hadn't been worse, as she'd been vegan over half her life at that point, spending the past ten years without eating any animal products. According to Alix, Marinette had become vegan around the same time as Lila, though the girl was a year younger than her. That meant Marinette was five when she swapped to being vegan, Chloè joined her a year later, when Chloè was seven, and Juleka was the most recent conversion at nine. Lila found herself avoiding Alya. The girl didn't look guitly, didn't even seem worried about their classmate that could barely stand. Lila slipped to the back of the class, unnoticed, and sat in the seat Marinette and Chloè usually claimed. 

"Juleka, how are you feeling?" The Italian was amused when both girls jumped. 

"Better. Thanks." Lila passed a thermos of the over. 

"It's chamomile and mint infused with lavender. It usually helped my mom a little after this happened to her."

Juleka gave the girl a shocked look. "Thanks. That's… really rad of you." The girl mumbled. 

Lila genuinely smiled at the two girls, leaving Juleka blushing and mumbling "too bright."

**_One Day Earlier:_ **

Chloè came back to school and sat beside Lila who was, once again, in the back. The Italian slid her the same tea blend she had given Juleka the day before. Chloè gave her a suspicious look. "You'll have to sit next to Kurtzburg tomorrow if you still want to sit back here." She finally said, taking a sip of her tea. "DC will be back tomorrow. She would have come today, but her parents tied her to the bed."

Lila blinked at the blonde as their odd group sipped on herbal tea. "Umm…  _ what _ ?"

Chloè waved her off. "It happens all the time, really. That girl tried to come to school after a twelve day designing frenzy with a cold after Christmas one time. She got tied to the bed that time too. She's slippery. Too slippery to leave free."

"Wow. Okay."

"I guess I should thank you." Chloè continued. "If it weren't for you, Alya may have taken longer to show this side of her and we would have died. You also have us a lead."

Lila shrugged."Even I have standards. 

🕊️

Alya watched Lila talking to the girls in the back. She wanted to prove that all four girls are meat despite their protests. She had clearly seen them all sit down with a burger in a restaurant the other day. No doubt Marinette was pretending to be sick and Lila was checking on her. Alya scoffed. If Marinette wanted to claim Lila was a liar and expose her, she should have been prepared for her own lies being exposed. Hypocrite.

Alya not-so-patiently waited for Lila to come to the front of the room so they could chat and she could get more info for her blog. The longer Lila stayed at the back, the angrier Alya got. She had just stood to go grab her best friend when Madame Bustier swept in the class. Lila never joined Adrien in the front.

**_The Day Of:_ **

Marinette slid in the booth beside Chloè chanting "freedom." Her small group gave her  _ looks _ , but she ignored them. She could be early if she wanted to.

Lila arrived to class not long after Marinette did, accepting the seat next to Nathaniel. She once again passed out tea before looking at Marinette. "I owe you an apology. I never thought that anyone would take things this far."

Marinette offered Lila a bright smile, despite the pallor of her skin. "It's fine, Lila. I'm sure Chloè already told you that it's better that you made Alya show her true colors now. I got lucky this time, if I were an adult… I'm afraid that that may have killed me. Especially if I were just with Alya rather than people that know the signs. We didn't even realize it at first, until Alix said something. She sometimes eats a vegan meal with us just so she can say she can eat anything. She was the one that noticed the meat flavoring and the small pieces of meat on our plate. She flipped the table and called for an ambulance instead of telling us to stop eating." Marinette laughed. 

Lila let out a small laugh herself. "That must have been a sight!"

"Lila!" Alya's excited voice resonated through the room. "What are you doing back there, come hang out with me and Adrien!"

Lila gave the reporter a bored glance. "I'm busy. In case you didn't notice, our classmates were sick."

"Oh please, they were just faking it. If they really were sick, none of them would be here today."

Adrien frowned as he walked in the room, hearing the last bit of Alya's sentence. He glanced to the back of the room. Marinette was so pale that he was sure she had to be wearing makeup, and Chloè would never be caught dead without her eyeshadow. 

"Marinette, it's not nice to lie about being sick for attention. You should go wash your makeup off." Adrien started, not noticing the anxiety attack he was helping cause. "You constantly call Lila out for being a liar, don't you think you're being a little hypocritical?"

Within seconds, Marinette was hit by a full blown anxiety attack. Lila lost all color, flashing back.

_ Lila clung to her sister's leg as the babysitter left. The girl had said she was going to the store to get snacks. Her sister, Annalisa, was nine and fully capable of taking care of them, but she had really bad anxiety. She glanced at the wall. "It should take Josephine forty-three minutes to walk to the store, get snacks, and walk back even with there being a long line." Her sister calculated. Annalisa was really good at math. She always knew exactly how long something would take someone. Her sister told her that it was her way of dealing with anxiety. When an hour and a half had passed and Josephine had yet to return, Annalisa started to panic. Lila recognized the signs of an anxiety attack, though she didn't know how to help when her sister became unresponsive. Lila's mother had come home to find her eldest daughter dead while her six year old was panicking. The babysitter was never found, and the mortician told them that Annalisa's death was caused by her anxiety attack. The girl had forgotten how to breathe. Some people's body's corrected the lack of breathing after the person passed out, though some needed a jump start to start back. Annalisa never got that jump start to breathe, and quite literally suffocated on anxiety. _

"Help her. Help her, please God, help her." Lila began muttering as the three girls split. Chloè took care of Marinette while Juleka wrapped her arms around a trembling Lila. Alix rounded on Alya when the bespectacled girl spoke again.

"God, Marinette, how pathetic do you have to be to fake anxiety? Snap out of it." Alix let out a war cry, stopped from ripping Alya  _ apart  _ by Kim and Ivan catching her by her arms. The two boys carefully kept her suspended by her arms while avoiding her feet and teeth. 

"Let the fuck go of me! Marinette has anxiety, you stupid bitch! She's had it her while life! She's been vegan since she was five, and some fucker fed her contaminated food the other day! She just got out of the hospital  _ yesterday _ ! She was lucky that her reaction wasn't worse! She, Juleka, and Chloè all were! Chloè went vegan when she was seven, and Juleka at nine! If I didn't realize that our began meal had meat in it, they could have  _ died! _ As it was, they were all hospitalized! I was with them! I watched as they vomited! Marinette and Chloè for so bad that they were vomiting blood!"

"No way, I saw all of you eating hamburgers the other day. Besides, why would  _ you _ be the one to realize there was meat in the meal, you're not vegan!"

Alix let out an inintelligible scream. "They literally have soy and tofu burgers! They look like meat, but it's not! And I was the one to realize because I eat a vegan meal with them about once a week! I'm the only one of us that remembers what real meat tastes like! You should know these things, your mother is a chef, your dad a vegan himself, and Nora knows more than anyone about diets!"

"Stop lying to defend her!" 

"Alya, she's not lying!" Nino snapped. "We've known Marinette since we were in preschool! She skipped a grade before she was in our class, but everyone knew her. Her anxiety was horrible back then, they had her take meds at certain intervals as well as another med if she actually had an attack. It's gotten better over the years, but anxiety isn't something that you can cure. Sure some people grow out of it or it's triggered by a traumatic even and eventually fades, but that's not always the case! Marinette will always have anxiety!"

"Really? Because it looks to me like she's having a panic attack because she got caught, and triggered Lila's anxiety attack." Lila came back to herself in time to hear Alya's accusations. Lila stopped Marinette's friends before they could attack. 

"No, Alya. You just did something I can never forgive. My older sister had anxiety, and it killed her because I was too young to know how to save her. She suffocated in her anxiety. Marinette's  _ anxiety attack _ triggered a flashback for me, which led to my  _ panic attack _ ." Lila snapped, pale and shaky. She quickly sent her mom a text, begging her to come pick her up. "I'm going home. Chloè, you should gather your friends and get Marinette somewhere she feels comfortable."

"You can come with us, if you want." The blonde heiress offered. She was mean, but she hated people to be alone after something like that.

Lila shook her head. "I need my mom. I just… she found us after… and then she had someone land her in the hospital because they didn't realize how serious being vegan is. Besides, I need to make a phone call."

Chloè nodded to Lila, texting Luka and Kagami to come to the hotel asap. "Stay safe. Don't let an akuma get you, it makes things like this worse after you come back to yourself."

Lila nodded before walking out the door. It would take Chloè and Juleka a good minute to properly restrain Alix so that they could safely get Alix and Marinette out of the classroom. Her mother should be there to get her by that time.

Lila almost ran to her mom's car when she pulled up. "Honey, are you okay?"

Lila took a deep breath, then told her mom what was happening. Her mom's voice was gentle when they got back home. "Go to your room for a while. Take a nap. Take a bubble bath. Do something to relax. Okay?"

Lila nodded, clutching her phone. She locked her door, then locked her bathroom door nd turned the sink on before sitting in the tub. She quickly dialed a number that she wasn't completely sure why she still had. "Wayne, before you hang up, I need your help." She could sense his indecision. "Look, if you hang up on me I'll either call one of your brothers or Alfred."

Damien sighed. "What do you want, Rossi?"

"There's this girl in my class. We didn't get along because she called me out on my lies even more than you did. She's fifteen, and has been a vegan since she was five. Two of her friends have been vegans almost as long as she has. Three days ago, someone fed them food mixed with real meat instead of synthetic. They were lucky, there's a fourth friend who isn't vegan, but occasionally eats a vegan meal with them. She realized that it had real meat in it. She flipped the table over to make them stop eating and called an ambulance. All three of them were hospitalized for varying times. Then, today, they were all back in class. I suspected one of my classmates of being the one to poison them, and she forced Marinette, the one that calls me out, to have an anxiety attack. I have no proof that she was the one to do anything, everything is circumstantial. Her mom is the head chef in the hotel they ate at, and all the police know is that the culprit is female. Her father is vegan, and her sister is a boxer, so she probably won't be seriously considered because she should know about these things. I'm afraid that she's going to kill these girls trying to prove they eat meat because she saw them get a burger at Burger King."

"The home o the Impossible Whopper? How stupid is this girl?"

"She runs the Ladyblog."

"Point taken." Damien was intrigued. He knew why Lila was concerned, he had read her file when she stayed in Gotham with her mother for two weeks, but he was surprised she would ask him for help. "We were due to head to Paris tomorrow to set up another branch of Wayne Enterprises. I'll do some investigating while we are there. You owe me one."

"Fine. Just hurry up."

🕊

Damien stared down at the phone. That had to be one of the oddest phone calls he had ever had. He headed down to his father's office- it was late, but patrol had just finished.

"Father, is it possible for us to be in Paris earlier than planned?" Bruce stared at his son and tried not to gape.

"Yes, why?"

"An old acquaintance requires my assistance. They fear for three of their classmates' lives, and possibly their own. The four of them are vegan, and the other three girls were recently hospitalized for eating contaminated food. Five of them suspect one girl, though they have no proof."

"Please explain with more detail."

"Lila Rossi contacted me today. She has very little to do with four of her classmates, even going as far as to compare one of them to me. She informed me that three of them are vegan, and the four of them are together at a hotel. Someone took them food covered in real meat rather than synthetic. The non-vegan friend occasionally eats vegan meals with the other three. She was the one to identify the dish as having real meat in it, and flipped the table over to make the others stop eating."

"Wouldn't the vegans recognize the real meat before their friend?"

Damien shook his head. "They have all been vegan for so long that they have forgotten what real meat is like. The fourth friend eats real and synthetic meat often enough to be able to tell the difference. The three girls were hospitalized. The girl Rossi compared to me just got out today, and was sent into an anxiety attack almost immediately by the suspect verbally attacking her for pretending to be sick."

Bruce sat back in his chair, considering. He was certain that Damien and already checked to make sure Lila Rossi was telling the truth. "Inform your brothers of the change in plans. Have them pack as quickly as possible, they can sleep on the plane. I'll call the school and have you temporarily transferred into the proper class at their school, get me the name of the school and the teacher. I already have the paperwork going through, I shall just have to inform Gotham Academy of the change in plans."

"François-DuPont, Caline Bustier's class." Damien told his father, walking out to gather his brothers. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, finally updating my first Daminette story! It's short, but I felt like this was a good one to have short.

When Damian walked in the school, he made a beeline for his homeroom. He had gotten his paperwork from the office the night before, the principal being more than happy to meet with them after hours. He scanned the room, noticing the empty seat next to Rossi. He walked straight back, eyeing the group of girls. The girl with blue hair was the first to notice him. 

"Hello!" Her voice was cautiously friendly. "You must be the friend Lila was talking about. I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"Damian." The boy answered, offering the girl a nod. 

"It's nice to meet you, Damian! There's a free seat next to Lila, and another one up front with Alya. Nathaniel's transfer request was finally approved, so you have more choices."

"I'll sit next to Lila." A girl with black hair and purple highlights muttered, sliding out and going around to the other side of the benches.

"Then I'm sitting next to Alix." Chloè huffed. "God only knows that Marinette would avoid talking to you otherwise."

Damian looked at the blonde, confused. Didn't Marinette just introduce herself? "Ignore Chloè. She doesn't seem to realize that this is different from dealing with a regular bully."

"When you first skipped a grade to join our class."

"Shut up! I was six!"

"You were locked in a closet for two days. You passed out from an anxiety attack and no one could find your ass."

Marinette rolled her eyes. "Lila told us that you're from America. Would you feel more comfortable with us speaking English?"

Damian shrugged. "I speak a lot of languages. French is one of my favorites."

"Fantastic!" Marinette's grin suddenly had a sharp edge to it. "Then you'll understand me when I say your clothes are horrendous. Either your fashion sense is atrocious, or whoever made those clothes lost their final braincell. I'm redesigning your clothes. You'll have an improved wardrobe by tomorrow."

Damian raised an eyebrow. "You do know I'm rich, right?"

Lila snickered. "Don't bother. If you aren't a designer or musician, she will never recognize you. Besides, when I finally accepted her friendship yesterday afternoon, the first thing she did was screech about how my fashion sense offended her, and threw a whole closet worth of clothes she had started making for me when I first transferred in. She's good enough that she can eyeball someone's measurements almost perfectly."

Damian blinked at them. "I only wanted to find the vegan attacker."

"And Marinette only wants everyone to be properly dressed. You won't get anything out of her until she's done except random words."

The blonde, Chloè, rolled her eyes. "You eventually learn to just roll with it. It's impossible to turn down DC's designs."

Damian blinked, "Wait, this is…"

"Shhhhh!" The pink haired girl hissed at him. "You're smarter than the idiots we call classmates. If you out her secret, I will personally rip out your kidneys, feed them to you, and super glue your mouth shut."

Chloè raised an eyebrow. "I know how to sew, Alix. Super glue isn't always enough."

Damian finally took a seat next to Marinette. "I guess I'll win the bet between my brothers."

"Bet? Can I get in?" Alix asked, excited.

"I doubt it. Three of them are big fans of Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng's work and have a bet on which one of them can get a design from her first. It appears I win without entering the competition." He eyed the girls, all dressed much better than their peers. He expected it from the Style Queen's daughter, though Lila Rossi was known for horrendous taste in clothing. Either her taste had improved, or MDC ignored what she usually wore. The other two girls were clearly goth and skater, though their clothes were more fashionable and a better quality than one would expect. "How many of you did she get to?"

"There's eight of us all together. Two are in Madame Mendeleiev's class while the others don't attend this school." Alix offered. "Marinette has a way of adopting people or being adopted. All of her former rivals are her friends."

"It's the eyes." Chloè claimed. "If you look her in the eyes even once, your done for. It's like a Medusa type situation, except slower and she turns you into a friend instead of stone."

Lila froze. "Have I looked her in the eyes? Is that how this happened?"

"Probably. It's how she got Kagami too."

"Four Robin's, three bats, two red swords, one crystal ball." Mari muttered. Damian did his best not to react, hoping he didn't go pale or reveal his identity to someone he'd hardly met.

Alix smirked at him. "She tends to mutter random phrases when designing. We don't know what she's talking about most times, though it usually has to do with superheroes. We don't know how, but she usually predicts the heroes that help Ladybug, though there have been a few we haven't seen. The rest of the time it's designs hidden in the clothes. None of us can understand her magic, but we love what she gives us."

Lila handed Damian her jacket. "The little embroidery on that? It's foxes playing in a field." Damian squinted, seeing what Rossi was talking about.

"This is astoundingly well crafted." Damian marveled. "Perhaps I should allow you to redesign my wardrobe. How much will she charge me?"

Chloè laughed in his face. "She refuses to take payment for an unofficial commission. She got it into her head that if she decides to redesign your wardrobe without you asking for it, it's a personal project and to be done with her money. So I ordered a commission from her and used that to approximate the cost for my clothes and slipped the money in her account via her parents."

Marinette didn't come out of her designer's frenzy until the end of the day. Damian allowed her an amused smirk. "What was with the talk of Robin's, swords, and crystal balls?"

Marinette blinked at the boy. "You're from Gotham, right? Hidden designs intent to pay homage to Gotham's heroes and vigilantes." Her smile was captivating, brightening even the darkest edges of his spirit.

"What are you, a sunshine child?" Damian demanded.

Chloè looked highly offended. "How dare you compare Mari to the sun! Adrien and I are the sunshine children, anyone too close risks getting burned. Mari's the moon, she shines, but not so bright that it hurts. She soothes those that get sunburned. The sun makes the moon shine all the brighter, without us sunshine children, the moon children would have no one to soothe." 

Damian stared at the group of girls. "Why the fuck did that make sense? And why the hell did you behave as if you have a soliloquy?"

Lila smirked. "Because of sleep deprived logic. It's infectious around this group. Never accept one of Marinette's specialty drinks." She cautioned.

Damian eyed the girl. "Didn't you inform me that you only began associating with Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng a day ago?"

Lila gave the youngest Wayne a long-suffering look. " _ Sooo _ much can happen in one day around Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her accomplices." 

Damian wasn't sure that he wanted to know just what all had happened in the time it took him to get to school.

Alix shrugged at his panicked look, "Mar's got serious chaos skills. Always has. She runs off of bastardized coffee. Hey, Marinette, tell the new kid how much sleep you got last week." Alix nudged the designer with her elbow.

"What?"

"Sleep. How much did you get?"

"The store closed before I could get there."

Alix gave Damian a  _ look. _ "See?"

"Keep her away from my brother."

Lila paled. "Please for the love of God keep her away from all three of them."

"Why?" Juleka mumbled.

"Dick's an acrobat. Jason's… got guns and likes to teach girls how to use them. He has a soft spot for the "little sisters" of the world. Tim's always sleep deprived, lives off of coffee, and matches her intelligence levels."

Chloè looked at the other girl's. "Operation Avoid Damian's Family begins now."

Alix stiffened. "Problem."

Chloè snapped at the other girl, "What problem?"

"I think we're too late." She pointed at where Marinette was talking to a boy with a white streak through his black hair, blue eyes amusedly focused on Damian before the boy slung his arm around Marinette's shoulders and led her away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😈 War Of The Brothers........ Begin!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahahahahaha
> 
> Help.

Marinette noticed the odd boy standing outside the school before anyone else. He was obviously older than them, was watching Damian, and was very amused if the smirk dancing across his face was any indication. She approached him with a smile, designing craze forgotten in the rush of possibly making a new friend. And designing for someone with a new style! She'd yet to get the chance to freely design whatever she wanted for a male biker aesthetic! 

"Hi!" She greeted the boy in English. She didn't want to assume that, just because Damian spoke French, the whole family spoke her mother tongue. "I'm Marinette!"

The boy smiled at her. "I'm Jason. It's nice to meet you."

The girl's smile brightened a little. "If you don't mind my asking, why are you here?"

"I was planning on picking up my brother and asking about his day. Now I'm talking to a little fairy of a girl, wondering how much self defense training she's had."

Marientte nearly vibrated from the chaos energy coming from their conversation. Good chaos energy, of course. "Lots." Her grin was surprisingly impish. Jason made eye contact with his brother, not bothering to hide his amusement. 

"Ever shoot a gun?"

"Not yet."

"That's the spirit! What kind of big brother would I be if I didn't give my new little sister her first lesson?" He slung an arm over her shoulder, leading her down the street. "One of the first things I did when Bruce said we were moving here was scope out all the local gun ranges. Bruce has all the proper equipment, of course, but sometimes you just want to escape the parental figures, yeah?"

"Yeah! That's why my parents don't know about my parkour! They would have made me stop for at least the next three weeks if they knew!"

Jason's muscles tensed. "Why would they make you stop?" He coaxed, trying to get a feel for the situation  _ before _ he assumed some type of abuse.

"I'm vegan, have been since I was five. Someone put me in the hospital because they didn't believe me and purposely contaminated my food." Marinette explained. She carefully repressed the anger, taking a sip of one of her special brews to fuel her happy sleep deprived energy.

"So you're the kid Damian was talking about yesterday?"

"Mmm… Possibly. If he's the kinda sorta not friend Lila was telling us about." Marientte shamelessly fished for information, allowing her mania to guide her words enough that the older boy wouldn't realize she was catagorizing their akuma victim levels. 

Jason let out a sharp bark of laughter. "That's a good way to phrase it. Damian doesn't like to call anyone a friend. Too scared of getting attached and the person leaving him. Which is a valid concern back home."

Marinette hummed. "How flexible are you?" She quizzed. The boy was built like a brick, so she didn't expect much, though she so desired a capable sparring partner. Her mother just couldn't do as much as she used to.

"Relatively so, though I don't do acrobatics often, but my older brother's pretty flexible. Grew up as an acrobat, performed with his parents on the trapeze as a kid before they passed. Bruce adopted him, then me, then Timmy, and Damian was born."

Marientte blinked. "Wow. There are a lot of you."

"You should see how many he hasn't _ officially _ adopted yet." Jason led Marinette into the range, ignoring his phone buzzing in his pocket. He had originally led Marinette towards their current place, then doubled back on a different route to throw Damian off their trail. He quickly spoke with the person working the counter, getting several pistols and a shotgun for them to practice with. 

It didn't take long for Marinette to prove very adept at shooting a pistol and a complete  _ beast _ with a shotgun. Jason smirked and got more pistol ammo.

🕊

The Sisters of Marinette (as the girls had started referring to themselves) searched alongside Damian for Jason and Marinette. It took almost an hour to find them, as neither Lila nor Damian were entirely sure where or  _ what _ exactly Jason was teaching the bluenette. Their money was on guns, but there were any number of other things he could teach her- ranging from classical literature to how to blow up a warehouse vigilante style and get away with it. They finally discovered the pair when the shifts changed, the new clerk not having been given the Do Not Disturb order Jason issued. Damian followed his brother's voice, absently wondering who the Little One was. It didn't take more than a second to realize that Pequeña was his nickname for Marinette once he saw him standing next to her, nodding approvingly as she accurately peppered the target.

Damian hummed contemplatively, eyeing the discarded shotgun. Either the girl was so good with it that Jason didn't see the need to practice with it right then, or he decided to start with the pistols. He figured it was option one, eyeing the used shotgun shells. He also took note that Todd held three bullets, one shotgun shell and two .38 pistol shells. He waited for the gunfire to abate, bringing his fingers up to his lips to let out a shrill whistle. Jason flipped him off before handing Marinette more bullets, watching as she deftly reloaded the gun before moving into position to fire.

Chloè looked slightly disturbed as she watched the pair, Damian finally asking her what her problem was. "He's teaching Marinette Dupain-Cheng how to use guns." Alix was the only one of the four that didn't seem to be bothered by it. 

"He'd better teach me next."

Chloè glared at the girl. "Marinette. Who has never been akumatized. Who Tsurugi Tomoe approved to be around her daughter and offered to teach her fencing- which she accepted, by the way. Who remains in high stress situations  _ all _ the  _ time! _ " The blonde snapped.

Alix shrugged. "She's strong, I don't think she's getting akumatized if she hasn't already. It's Marinette Dupain-Cheng." Alix fired back. Damian simply wondered if the girl would like to learn how to use a sword.

🕊

Marinette felt very satisfied when she finally returned home, congratulating herself on a day  _ very _ well spent. Her next plan was to get a very long bath with her homemade bath bombs and finish designs (for now) for Damian and start on Jason's. She was not amused when someone knocked on her trapdoor, but decided to humor Chat Noir anyways. 

"What is it, Chat Noir?" She asked as she opened her trapdoor, looking directly into guilty green eyes. His ears were pressed flat against his head.

"I heard what happened to you and some of your classmates." He admitted. "Are you okay?"

Marinette offered him an honest smile. She wasn't up for banter right now, and was grateful that he was being sincere. "Yeah, I'm fine. The first couple days were horrible, the hospital wouldn't let me leave. My energy levels are lower than usual, but they're rapidly getting better."

"That's good." Chat Noir finally relaxed enough to sit down. "Do they know who contaminated your food?"

Marinette shook her head. "Alya's mom got fired over it, but Chloè's already screaming at her parents to bring her back. She's always been really careful about our food, and an unknown person brought us our food. The cameras didn't get a good look at the female, but Marlena was still in the kitchens, and she would never do something like that to me. The other girls think it was Alya." She admitted, voice soft.

"Do you think it was Alya?" Chat Noir softened his own voice, trying to keep from making any more mistakes with Marinette- at least for a little while.

Tears rushed to the girl's eyes, neither of them noticing the group of vigilantes on an adjacent roof. "I don't want to. She was my best friend. I mean, sure, she's hasty, but she's not a killer. Right? She wouldn't do that to me." Tears streamed down Marinette's face from where she'd been pushing them back for too long. "She's the first friend I've made in  _ years _ . She's helped me so much, I don't… I don't want to believe she'd do that to me." Marinette admitted, curled in on herself. 

Chat Noir moved forward lightly resting his hand on her shoulder. "I heard about what happened to you at school yesterday as well. How are you holding up after that?"

"Adrien and Alya are still new. Maybe not Lila new, but too new to know about my anxiety. I'm good at hiding it, always have been. Lila knew, but Adrien's father keeps him busy and he doesn't really have any interest in me, so I don't blame him, and Alya's always been more focused on herself than how things affect me. But she did know I'm vegan, I told her that forever ago. Surely she wouldn't _ actually _ try to poison me. Her dad's vegan. The twins are allergic to fish. Nora has an extreme diet she follows to a t." Marinette sobbed, her words becoming more and more difficult to understand. 

Chat gave her shoulder an awkward pat. "I'm so sorry." He told her, "why don't you go ahead and lay down for the night? I'll keep an eye out for akumas-"

Marinette shook her head. "Don't bother." She sniffled, reigning in her emotions. "They can't possess me."

Chat froze. "Why not?"

"Akumas can only get to people that feel a negative emotion or don't have another solution. I am rarely in that position, and I always turn him down when he tries."

Chat Noir paled, his skin taking on a slightly green hue. "H-how exactly do you keep both from happening?"

"I shut down my emotions until I can rid myself of negativity or find a solution."

"How long have.you gone without feeling anything?"

"The longest so far has been two and a half months." Marinette admitted, forcing more and more emotions down. 

"I see. Go to bed, Princess. Please find a better way to resist akumazation, okay?" Chat nearly begged before leaving. And if he had to stop and vomit over what Marinette told him, well… no one had to know. (Except the Bat Family knew, one or two of them following the hero to make sure he didn't die from shock on his way home.)

Marinette ignored the plea, finally running her bathwater and dropping in her special blend of eucalyptus, tea tree, lavender, and vanilla. She stepped into the fizzing water, watching as it turned a deep purple. She didn't design anything, but she did get her bath (and a thirty minute nap in the water) before turning to her fabrics.

🕊

Damian would deny the flush that raised to his cheeks when he saw Marinette the next day until the day he died. Maybe even after that. He didn't understand the feelings that were currently hounding him, and so did what any sane person did. Ignore the persistent little alqarf and silently threaten to destroy them if they became too determined.

The girl, Marinette, wore a pale purple shirt with lavender butterflies constructed in a complex pattern across it, a contrast to the lavender skirt with wide-spread iridescent purple butterflies. A few sprigs of lavender had found a home in her braided hair, and approaching her proved that she smelled very much similar to the plant. He flinched at the loud squeal next to him, watching the blonde girl run past him to grab the bluenette. 

"Is it nature week already?!?" The girl squealed, shaking the poor designer back and forth. "Is it?"

Marinette let out a small laugh when the girl released her, making something inside Damian relax. That was a large difference from how she'd sounded when talking to the Cat Hero the night before. "Nature week?" He asked strolling up to the pair. He was not expecting Marinette to lunge at him, the boy dodging instinctively. He pivoted on his heel, finding his hands suddenly full of clothes that Marinette definitely hadn't been holding before. "What the fuck?"

"That's half of what I have designed." Marinette informed him. "I also have some things for Jason."

"How much sleep did you get last night?" Damian demanded, flashing back to how broken the girl had looked last night. Surely she didn't stay up long with how exhausted she looked. 

"I didn't look at the clock." Was Marinette's honest answer. 

Chloè rolled her eyes. "DC never looks at her clock because she knows if she did she'd tell us just how little she got. She sucks at lying. And nature week is where she has a design every day of the week based off of nature. Complete with makeup and hairstyles that complement each individual look. This year is either insects or flowers."

Damian nodded. "How many cups of coffee did you drink?"

"None." Marinette chirped, making Damian narrow his eyes. 

"I told you, she runs off bastardized coffee." Alix reminded him as she skated up. "How many Marinette Specials did you drink?" 

Marinette froze like a deer caught in headlights, offering up a quick smile. "No comment!" She bounced once on the balls of her feet before taking off.


End file.
